Free [04] Elite: Mostly Harmless by Kate Russell

over the gold and hope to get away with the ship undamaged.
    ‘Where are you Kram? I’m getting hammered here!’
    There was a brief moment of silence as the tracer fire stopped, then the ship’s radar started bleeping ominously as a volley of small dots were released. The radar showed three heading towards Kram who was limping around to her right; the other three were heading straight for Angel. She gulped and wheeled the ship through the chill of space, opening the heat sink vent and spewing a blanket of hot matter in her wake to throw off the missiles. A rapid concussion ripped through the cockpit as the missiles took the bait, cracking open the darkness with blinding light, warheads booming on every side. Angel’s head whipped cruelly from side to side as the ship was flung about, hull shrieking. Deep inside the belly of the craft pipes burst open, vomiting angry steam and gas. The glass in the forward windscreen made an ominous pinking sound as the fuselage twisted with the force of the after-blast swallowing the ship. Angel glanced at the shield readout – twenty percent . Dear Lady that was a big hit. One more of those and she was toast. She looked out of the side window to see the ‘Lance looming up again, close on her port side.
    Kram was nowhere in sight. She looked at the console. Her heart sank. His ship’s wireframe was deconstructing in front of her eyes, replaced by a series of radiation and heat signature data scattered about. Before she could run a scan to check for an escape pod, a fresh volley of tracer fire demanded her attention. The Cobra’s thrusters howled like a wounded dog as she banked hard to the left, causing bullets to chip across her tail rather than ripping through the belly of her hull.
    Shields were eighteen percent. She opened up a proximity channel.
    ‘This is Alliance trade vessel Hope Falls ; attacking ship hold your fire. I am lowering my shields, you can have my cargo.’
    She punched a few buttons on the keyboard and dragged the emergency autopilot control into the navigation bin on the dash. The shipped banked straight away as the computer took over the helm, flattening out its flight path and decelerating to a safe speed for emergency measures to be deployed. An SOS beacon started flashing on the dash letting ships in the vicinity know she was standing down, surrendering. Any more gun play would mean a reputation hit for her attackers - this was where the madness ended.
    At least, that’s the way it usually went.
    Sporadic chain gun fire chattered from behind her, plinking across the hull. With the shields lowered one bullet actually chipped a hairline fracture in the windscreen. It started spreading immediately.
    ‘What the—’
    Angel grabbed her EVA helmet and slapped the comms panel again to make sure the channel was open. ‘Stand down. I SAID STAND DOWN! I’ve lowered my shields. I surrender. You can have the damn gold. It’s not worth my life.’
    She watched, breathing hard as her assailants banked in a lazy arc and then levelled up to face her across a few clicks of cold space. Now the frantic pace of battle had calmed she could read the decal on the nose of the ‘Lance. Two broken red rings around a yellow disc with a section cut out - like that Pacman character from ancient earth computer gaming. The ship’s name was ‘Majogu’s Mutt’.
    The comms link crackled as they patched into the channel.
    ‘You have thirty seconds to get your arse into a pod and get clear. I have a new dumbfire missile I’ve been itching to try out and your ship looks just about dumb enough for target practise.’
    The voice sounded amused and there were goading cheers in the background.
    ‘Hey! Wait! I am standing down!’
    ‘Twenty nine … twnty eight … twnty seven …’
    ‘Piss!’
    Angel hauled herself out of the command chair and propelled herself towards the escape pod hatch. A quick twist and it was open, the pod already powered up.
    ‘What about me?’
    It was